


Almost Fallen

by grey_sw (grey)



Series: Possibilities [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers for Episode Ignis, one(?) sided Ignoct
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:12:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey/pseuds/grey_sw
Summary: Carbuncle, too, is his friend. Ignis sleeps almost as much as Noct did, now, which seems funny and ironic and sad all at once. Gladio and Prompto work around it, the way all three of them once did for Noct; more than a few afternoons find the great Lucian Advisor asleep at his desk in the sunlight that streams through the window, with his Council robes billowing around him. On these days, Prompto hangs anot in sessionsign outside the Council's chambers and Gladio shoos everyone out into the gardens for a short break, and no one ever admits that Ignis snores in his slumber.Ignis sleeps, and his sleep is guarded, so his pain never follows him to his dreams.





	Almost Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the end of the game and both paths in Episode Ignis.

He and his friends fell apart in the dark. It's largely Ignis' fault, or so he still believes: he couldn't tell them the truth, the awful truth about the future, and so his obsessive inability to stop training and researching and tomb-raiding with Talcott drove them away from him. Never mind that Prompto shook in his sleep, muttering about Gralea; never mind that Gladio hunted til he collapsed, until his hands cracked and bled like raw meat. It was always Ignis' fault. 

Only Noct was ever enough to bring them back together... yet somehow, even after the dawn that took him, they've stayed that way. 

These days they all sit together on the Council. It's still the Royal Council of Lucis, despite the fact that Lucis has no royalty and not a single Councilmember who isn't far more suited to messily killing things than governing, but it's been working out so far. They've been mulling over Monica's proposal to adopt an Accordan style of government, with a First Secretary or a Prime Minister, perhaps, but they're taking their time to get it right. (Naturally, Prompto just won't shut up about "First Councilman Scientia". Ignis thinks he's being silly, and also that it ought to be _Councilmember_.)

These days, Ignis still lives, though he often longs not to. These days, he's the one who mopes around the way Noctis did, the one coffee and the rich scent of bacon can't always wake. He's the one with a ragged hole in his heart, shaped like a lifetime of magic fire; he's the one who misses his Noctis as if that same fire is burning him up inside. Now Ignis is the one who needs to hear his worth over and over again, even as he struggles to get Prompto and Gladio to acknowledge their own brilliance. And he's the one Gladio and Prompto adjust for on the fly, checking in to see what he needs, whether that's bringing him lunch or coming at him two-on-one on the training ground. 

This life is everything Ignis ever did for Noct -- a lifetime of effort and care, a lifetime of love -- all given back into his scarred hands like a treasure. 

On the vast majority of days, all of this is enough to tether him to the world, enough to keep him breathing despite the chasm in his chest. On other days, his friends keep loyal watch over him. They brew him fresh pots of Ebony (each worth a King's ransom, because such luxuries scarcely exist any longer), and they sit with him to keep him warm, and the knives in their wing of the Citadel stay under lock and key.

They won't let him go. In time, Ignis stops resenting them for it; in time, those bad days are fewer and farther between.

They never go away entirely. 

Not even long after he ought to be all right, long after he ought to be strong and fierce and unstoppable again. (A day? A week? A month at most? Surely that should be enough time, enough hurt, enough weakness.) It shames him to be so weak, sometimes. Such a burden, so flawed and incapable. It's another thing that breaks his heart, over and over again.

But his friends never stop caring for him.

\---

Carbuncle, too, is his friend. Ignis sleeps almost as much as Noct did, now, which seems funny and ironic and sad all at once. Gladio and Prompto work around it, the way all three of them once did for Noct; more than a few afternoons find the great Lucian Advisor asleep at his desk in the sunlight that streams through the window, with his Council robes billowing around him. On these days, Prompto hangs a _not in session _sign outside the Council's chambers and Gladio shoos everyone out into the gardens for a short break, and no one ever admits that Ignis snores in his slumber.__

__Ignis sleeps, and his sleep is guarded, so his pain never follows him to his dreams._ _

__Sometimes Carbuncle takes him back in time. In these dreams he can still see; in these dreams Noctis is still alive, bursting with energy, and there's no such thing as Stasis any longer. In these dreams Ignis is brilliant beyond reckoning, Prompto's bullets are quick as lightning, Gladio strong as a rock. They slaughter their way across the whole world, laughing together. Ignis drives for endless hours over every inch of Leide and Cleigne and Duscae, with the wind whipping through his swept-up hair and a cold can of Ebony in his hand, and there are always a million things to do whenever they stop, a million meaningless errands to run._ _

__When night falls they make camp, and Ignis cooks for his friends and sees Noct smile at what he's made for him, and then at dawn's first light they head out to do it all over again._ _

__\---_ _

__On other nights, Carbuncle brings him to another world, to walk beside another Ignis. This Ignis is stronger than he is, full of Light from the Ring; his sacrifice was not in vain. When Ignis takes Ignis' hand he can feel it, a thrum of distant, dormant power that throbs through his left ring finger. He can feel it ebb and flow to the rhythm of his heartbeat, even through the leather of his gloves, and even though he failed. It still knows him._ _

__When he runs those same gloves over this Ignis' face it is mostly whole, mostly beautiful. There is only a small, ragged scar over his left eye, the size of a ten-Gil coin, and Ignis knows his eyes are green._ _

__Sometimes they cook together, Ignis Scientia and Ignis Scientia, standing side by side over baking pans and pots of stew. They know different recipes from different lives, and they swap them back and forth as if it still matters, as if Ignis' Noctis isn't dead and gone. Sometimes they fight together, sallying forth to the field against whatever manxome foe presents itself... and in a world which still has a Chosen King, Ignis is surprised to find that he remembers how to burn._ _

__They walk for hours together through the Citadel grounds, up to Sothmocke Haven or down through the boggy Vesperpool, and Ignis tells Ignis all about his own Noctis, the True King of Light. The boy who lived. Over the years Ignis comes to feel as if he knows this version of Noct through Ignis' stories, even though he'll never meet him. This version of Noct looks a bit like his father: he has the same wry, knowing smile, the same knee brace and elegant pinstripe suit. This version of Noct is strong and kingly and proud, with his Grand Chamberlain always one step behind him; this version still drags said Grand Chamberlain out fishing at four in the morning, because everyone knows you can only catch the elusive Vesper Gar close to daybreak._ _

__This version of Noct loves his Ignis, his brave and loyal Iggy, just the way Ignis secretly wished he would._ _

__And on some nights Ignis gives every moment of Noct's love over to Ignis. On some nights Ignis fills him up with it, soft and slow and deep in the dark, gasping desperate words of gratitude. Ignis' sacrifice made all of it possible, so Ignis will never stop trying to show him the Light._ _

__\---_ _

__These are not the best dreams, even so, because the very best dreams are dreams of a throne room in a fairy-tale Citadel. Ignis half-suspects that the room has been made up for a wedding celebration -- for the wedding of a great King, surely -- but if so, he cannot see it. He cannot see it, so even though Ignis' steps are sure on the stairs as he climbs upward, his left hand is outstretched before him, seeking, searching. It's always his left hand, the scarred one. The one that wore the Ring._ _

__Every time, he reaches out. Every time he's afraid that no one will find him, afraid that this is the night when his only true dream will be revealed as a lie. When his heart will finally break forever. Ignis reaches out regardless, because he can't ever stop reaching for Noct. He strains forward up the staircase until he's almost falling, almost fallen, and his mouth makes the shape of Noct's name._ _

__At that moment, just when Ignis is lost, small fingertips always brush against his own. Small fingertips, warm with life, and a small hand that runs over his ruined palm with love, the way another hand did in another world. Sword-strong arms encircle his chest, banish his heartache, and a living body presses against him in a shy, quicksilver hug. It's there and gone in an instant, just like hundreds of little-Prince hugs over the course of a lifetime, yet it fills Ignis' heart up with joy._ _

__It'll always be enough for him._ _

__"Hey there, Specs," Noct says, and Ignis can hear the smile in his voice. "I missed you."_ _


End file.
